War Between Rib Restaurants Turns More Than A Bit Saucy

DELRAY BEACH — The secret is in the sauce. But apparently the sauce is no longer a secret.

A bitter feud between Tom Wright Jr. and his two partners has sent Wright back to the tiny shack where he started his take-out soul food restaurant, Tom Jr.`s Rib Heaven, four years ago.

Wright, the son of Boca Raton`s famous barbecue chef Tommie Lee Wright Sr., said Monday he`ll bring with him his name and his secret barbecue sauce.

He`ll call it The Original Tom Jr.`s Rib Heaven.

But Wright`s former partner, Darryl Kogan, said Tom Jr.`s sauce and Tom Jr.`s name will stay at the restaurant Kogan, Wright and their partner Mark Schlansky opened last December on the corner of Congress Avenue and Linton Boulevard.

Wright called a press conference Monday at his new take-out-only restaurant at 1211 S. Dixie Highway in Delray Beach to announce he`s reopening Wednesday.

Last month, Wright sold his 50 percent interest in Tom Jr.`s Rib Heaven Inc. to Kogan and Schlansky. That transaction supposedly ended months of feuding between the trio that stemmed from Wright`s involvement in the operation of the Congress Avenue restaurant and whether Wright would reveal his barbecue sauce recipe to his partners.

``It didn`t work out for me,`` Wright said. ``It was a bad business deal. They wanted to change my whole concept. Tom Jr.`s is based on my father`s concept. It`s a family restaurant and they wanted me to change that.``

``He walked out on me,`` Kogan said. ``I spent a year working on what was supposed to be his dream and he walked out on me.``

Less than a week later after Wright sold his interest, Kogan and Schlansky sold the restaurant on Congress Avenue and all its equipment to Charlie DiSalvo, owner of the Bahama Smokehouse, another renowned barbecue restaurant on North Federal Highway in Delray Beach. The restaurant is still named Tom Jr.`s Rib Heaven. And DiSalvo and Kogan said the sauce used there is the sauce Wright started with four years ago.

Wright claims he never gave Kogan the complete sauce recipe. Wright said his sauce is only slightly different from his father`s sauce. When the new restaurant opened at Congress Avenue, Wright said he gave Kogan only 45 percent of the original recipe: a base of Cattleman`s brand sauce, ketchup, black pepper, granulated garlic, salt, white vinegar, white sugar and yellow mustard.

``Darryl Kogan kept trying to persuade me to give him the sauce recipe,`` Wright said. ``I just gave him a basic recipe.``

The complete recipe has seven additional ingredients, Kogan said, and he knows what they are. He said he has seen Wright make the sauce. Kogan refused to say what the missing ingredients are.

``If you taste the sauce at the (Congress Avenue) restaurant and compare it to the sauce Tom serves, you won`t taste any difference,`` Kogan said. ``There is not one customer who noticed a difference in the sauce.``

Wright said he is considering legal action if DiSalvo doesn`t change the name of his restaurant. Wright said when he sold his interest, Kogan and Schlansky agreed not to use the name Tom Jr.`s Rib Heaven. Kogan said Wright is correct, but he`s not using the name, DiSalvo is.

``In fact, there is an agreement that says he can`t use the name Rib Heaven,`` Kogan said. ``The way I see it, we are the ones who could take the action.``

Wright said he wants to avoid conflict with his old partners and just wants to start over again. After spending $20,000 renovating his new restaurant, Wright will stoke up the grill on Wednesday and, with his name and his sauce, try to rebuild his business.

Just a few miles away, there will be another restaurant with the same name and apparently the same sauce.